Evil at Heart (58 page)

           
“Or you can come for me.”

           
The pulse of blood against Archie’s fingers increased as Jeremy’s heart rate quickened. Archie’s hand was halfway inside Jeremy’s body. He could feel the heat and life of him.

           
He thought of Isabel Reynolds, of three homeless people Jeremy had killed, of Fintan English who’d died in this very house. He looked up at Gretchen. At the scalpel on the floor between them. And he released Jeremy’s artery and lifted his hands.

           
Jeremy made a noise. “No.”

           
Archie took two steps toward Gretchen and scooped up the scalpel in his bloody hand. Gretchen stiffened and took a step back, against the wall. He was on top of her in a moment, their bodies a few inches apart, his palm flat on the wall next to her head.

           
He could hear Jeremy struggling against the nylon ropes, making strangled cries.

           
The scalpel was light in his hand, pretty, the same model she had used to carve him up.

           
“Whatever made you think that I don’t support the death penalty?” Archie said.

           
He stabbed her below the left rib cage.

           
The scalpel went in all the way to the handle, and Archie held it there, his fist against her heaving abdomen. He looked down between them and saw blood. He tried to ignore Jeremy’s whimpers.

           
“Look at me,” he told her.

           
She looked up at him with her perfect blue eyes. He had wanted to see surprise. He had wanted to do one thing, take one action, that she had not predicted and orchestrated.

           
Her lips parted. She tried to speak.

           
Jeremy made one last strangled sound and then was silent.

           
“Twist it,” she said.

           
Archie turned the scalpel and she opened her mouth and cried out, her cheeks flushing. Then she cupped his face with her hands. They were wet with Jeremy’s blood. Archie could smell it.

           
“Men are so simple,” Gretchen said. Her hands were warm and her touch soft. “With Jeremy, I just went a little younger. I wanted to see if I could take a child and turn him into a monster. So I took him and his sister to this house and I murdered her in front of him.” She beamed.

           
Archie couldn’t think straight. She was lying again. Jeremy was a psychopath. He’d been born that way. He’d killed his sister. He would keep killing. He tightened his grip on the scalpel. “No,” he said.

           
Her hands trembled against his cheeks as he pushed the blade in deeper, and he could feel the heat of her blood spreading between them.

           
“It was an experiment,” she said, slowly sliding her hands down his neck to his chest. “I wanted to see if I could create something evil. Anyone can be a murderer, given the right set of circumstances.”

           
She glanced at Jeremy. “I guess I was right.”

           
Oh, God, Archie thought. No. Please.

           
She gave Archie’s chest a gentle push, and he stepped back, and the scalpel, his hand still clenched around the handle, slid from her body. “Jeremy didn’t kill his sister,” she said. “He didn’t kill any of them. He was just a poor little boy I manipulated. I talked him into getting his little club to perform the splenectomy. I suspended you from the hooks. I was there the whole time. Jeremy was innocent.” Her smile widened as she reveled in her victory. “And you just let him die.”

           
Archie opened his hand and let the scalpel drop. It bounced noisily on the concrete, and as Gretchen glanced down at the sound

           
Archie reached behind his back and drew his gun. By the time she glanced up, the muzzle was pressed into her forehead. Archie’s hand was shaking and he had to press the gun to her head hard to steady the thing. He had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to blow a hole in Gretchen Lowell’s head.

           
“You were right,” he said. “I was leaving you. That night I came to your house. I was going to end it and tell Debbie everything.”

           
He moved the muzzle down her face, between her eyes, along the bridge of her nose, and pressed it against her closed lips. “Take it,” he said. “Take it.”

           
He could see the pulse in her throat flutter as she opened her lips and let him slide the barrel of the gun into her mouth.

           
Pull the trigger and he’d rip open the back of her head.

           
Who would blame him?

           
And then he would be a killer. Just like her.

           
He wasn’t going to let her win.

           
He pulled out of her mouth slowly and lifted the gun back to her forehead. And in that heartbeat, he felt something unfamiliar. He felt like his old self.

           
“You’re under arrest,” he said.

           
Archie glimpsed the barest hint of movement to his left before he felt the gun barrel on his ear.

           
“I didn’t come alone,” Gretchen said.

           
And then Archie caught it. A wave of musk.Patchouli.

           
“Neither did I,” he said.

           
“If you move,” Archie heard Susan say. “I will stab you in the neck.” She stepped forward into his peripheral vision. She had the knife out of her pocket tool and was holding it to Frank’s neck.

           
“Hello, Frank,” Archie said. Frank’s chin was down, his eyes unblinking, and his doughy face was flushed and sweaty. Archie

           
had seen him like this before. It usually ended with Frank throwing a chair.

           
“Hello, Archie,” Frank said.

           
“She’s not your sister,” Archie said. “You know that, right?”

           
“Shoot him,” Gretchen said flatly.

           
Susan adjusted her stance, angling the knife higher against Frank’s neck. “Don’t even think about it,” she said.

           
“Are you still mad at me?” Frank asked Archie.

           
“No,” Archie said. “I’m not mad.”

           
“Shoot him in the head,” Gretchen said again.

           
“Yeah,” Frank said. “Okay.”

           
Archie tensed, waiting for the shot, and then he heard it. He’d never been shot before. He’d had nails driven into his ribs with a hammer. He’d been forced to drink drain cleaner. He’d been cut up and sliced and stabbed. But shot? No.

           
It didn’t hurt. That’s what they said. People had been shot and gone several minutes before even noticing. Some people described it as a sensation of heat. Other people said the pain was excruciating.

           
Being shot in the head, you probably couldn’t feel that. You probably just died.

           
And he wasn’t dead.

           
Frank was.

           
SWAT snipers came through the boiler room doorway in pairs, all in black, headlamps shining. They had probably come in through the basement window. The gunshot Archie had heard was not meant for him—it was a sniper bullet meant for Frank. Archie heard the heavy, running footsteps of reinforcements entering upstairs.

           
It was all a fog.

           
Archie didn’t move, didn’t let up the pressure of the gun to

           
Gretchen’s head, until there were five other weapons trained on her.